Segments versus lists

Both are audiences a campaign can send to, and both appear in the campaign builder's Audience dropdown — grouped under Lists and Segments. The difference is who maintains them.

A list is static

You put people in it, by importing a CSV or routing contacts into it. They stay until something removes them. Use a list when membership is a decision you make.

A segment is a rule

A segment is defined by conditions and re-evaluates itself as customers behave — the Segments page describes them as rule-based audiences that update automatically, and they are fully automatic. Nobody adds or removes people.

Use a segment when membership is a fact about the customer: "2+ orders, spent over $200", "bought in the last 30 days", "never opened anything".

Create a segment

Open Segments and click New Segment. Give it a Name and an optional Description, then define the rule.

The table then shows Members and Last evaluated, so you can see both how many people currently match and when that was last worked out. Use in campaign takes you straight into a campaign targeted at it.

Which should you use?

• Sending to people you gathered yourself — a list.
• Sending to people who meet a condition — a segment.
• Sending to both at once — you can. A campaign accepts several audiences, lists and segments together, and each person is mailed once even if they appear in more than one.

Membership is not sendability

For both kinds, the member count is not the number that will be emailed. Unsubscribed, bounced and invalid contacts are filtered out at send time, and contacts without marketing consent are never mailed regardless of which audience they sit in.

Next: open Segments → New Segment if your audience is a rule rather than a hand-picked group.